Photo TR: Ocean City, MD and Morey's (sort of)

[Marko]

Trimpers and Jolly Roger at the Pier, Ocean City, Maryland - This was a quick one hour stop as we had reservations for the Lewes/Cape-May Ferry at 2:45. Looking back I wish we would have scheduled a later departure as we really liked Ocean City! Finding Trimpers was easy enough and it was great to finally ride a Toboggan again, haven't been on one since I was 10 years old at the MN State Fair. Tidal Wave was yet another boomerang but still fun and oddly enough the Pinfari Looping Star at Jolly Roger wasn't painful at all, actually sort of a goofy, good time. We wandered the boardwalk for a bit and again really liked the bright, cheery vibe of the whole city.

 

Morey's Piers, Wildwood NJ - The car-ferry ride was uneventful and over in a little over an hour. We took the south side into Wildwood and found our motel for the night, The Starlux. This #1 rated motel per Tripadvisor.com has a retro doo-wop theme that looked pretty cool from their web site and the online reviews. And in theory it's a great idea. Take an old run-down motel, open an Ikea corporate account and renovate/theme the heck out of it. But what they fail to mention is it's next to a demolished building site, you're lodging next to a quarter of a block of rubble. The staff are not friendly at all and our room was teensy-tiny. And then there's just Wildwood itself which if you're in the 21-25 age range is clearly a wonderful place to drink heavily and swap cooties. Wildwood is the parallel/opposite universe of Ocean City, MD. Dark, dirty, we were itching to leave within an hour of being there.

 

To add insult to injury The Great White was down for the weekend, something about the lift chain. Now when you pull this CCI out of Morey's line-up the park pretty much loses all incentive to buy tickets or the $41 wristband. So we wandered the boardwalk and beach, ate some pizza at Mack's and called it a night. I woke up at 5:00 AM to a wide awake son who was pretty unhappy with the whole vibe of our room/motel and the all-night party still blaring outside. He wanted out so I suggested blowing off the rest of the Jersey Shore as planned and heading straight for Great Adventure which was just two hours north. He jumped at the idea. There are few instances where we have been relieved to be out of a motel and a city, this was definitely one of them. Our fully packed car felt roomier than our room! Still it looks like Morey's could be a fun evening stop sometime again, especially if the rumors about a new coaster prove true.

 

Next stop, Six Flags Great Adventure.

But we made the best of it and still had fun. That's it for Morey's!

So we wandered the boardwalk which if you love fudge, pizza, t-shirts and tatoos you'll be in heaven.

Me, dealing with their CCI being down *all* weekend. Aside from Raging Wolf Bobs this is the first time we were skunked on a wood coaster.

Hey, at least we got a nice picture. We'll be back someday.

The lovely, lovely stairwell at the Starlux.

Check out the bathroom door, it's maybe two feet wide! It was like a room for hippie hobbits.

The crazy Starlux motel - not one of our favorites! Looks cool though.

Cape May ahead!

Chillin' on the deck.

Amazing how many cars/buses/trucks they can pack on one of these. Our ferry was full.

Yep, it's a boat.

Time to board the ferry for south Jersey.

Boomerang...

Ending with Trimpers which opened at noon.

A little wandering around the Boardwalk.

Jolly Roger in Ocean City, Maryland

Where the road ends and ocean begins.

Hope it doesn't leak!

And the drive into the ocean is pretty amazing.

It certainly is an Engineering marvel.

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel was not as cool as I thought it would be.

[Mark Rosenzweig]

Enjoying your series of PTRs, and to each their own, but it should be noted that save perhaps for the SCBB Giant Dipper and Coney Cyclone that *no* shore resort amusement park is "for" the coasters. The Ocean City, MD portion to me says you rode the three coasters and left, which would have been a shame as Trimper's has *four* dark ride/walk thru attractions.

 

At Morey's, the amazing Zoom Phloom is probably the best ride on the entire Jersey Shore.

 

Shore parks are more for atmosphere and quirky rides/attractions then coasters. Always has been that way. The $41 band at Morey's is more than worth it, as just taking in the dark rides and other anchor attractions (i.e. Giant Wheel, Condor, Go Karts....) you can easily rack up over $75 in rides- with or without Great White (which is one of the poorer CCIs in the first place).

 

-Mark

[itsme102]

Nice TR. It's a shame you didn't have a good time at Morey's. I usually go down there for a 3 day trip every summer. If you ever go back, I reccommend staying at the Compass . Its nice looking, clean, the rooms are a good size, and no stairwells like the one you pictured.

 

I know with Great White being down, it's basically Vekomaland with an SLC and a Boomerang, but they really aren't that bad IMO.

 

One more thing, if you think that Wildwood is dirty now, you should have seen it a few years ago. You would have ran out as soon as you got there!

[Marko]

Thanks Mark - We'll definitely budget more time for OC next time, would have loved to had wristbands for both Trimpers and Jolly Roger and spent the entire afternoon and evening there. Lots of nice resorts/hotels and the whole town just seemed to have a shine to it.

 

And that's where Wildwood immediately fell apart for us. We rushed through OC thinking Wildwood and Morey's would be Valhalla but it turned out to be more Baghdadish, at least where we were staying! Toss in the CCI being down, us being tired, and just generally being disappointed with the whole town we threw in the towel for the day. Now we know better, da shore is a whole 'nother world. We apparently needed a practice visit, lol.